Meddelanden 2017

22 februari 2017: The Royal Observatory Greenwich, in association with Insight Investment and BBC Sky at Night Magazine, has announced the key dates for the Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2017 competition — its annual global search for the most beautiful and spectacular visions of the cosmos, whether they are striking pictures of vast galaxies millions of light-years away, or dramatic images of the night sky much closer to home. ESO supports the 2017 competition by providing a judge from its education and Public Outreach Department (ePOD). Now in its ninth year, the hugely popular competition will open to entrants on Monday 27 February, giving them the chance of taking home the grand prize of £10 000. Entrants will have until Friday 7 April to enter up to ten images in the various categories of the competition via www.rmg.co.uk/astrophoto. Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2017 has nine main categories: Skyscapes: Landscape ...

20 februari 2017: ESO is proud to announce its new collaboration with the Centre for Astrophysics of the University of Porto (CAUP) to support AstroCamp 2017, an astronomy-focused summer academic program for secondary school students. The Summer AstroCamp 2017 will be held from 6 to 20 August in northern Portugal, at the Centre for Environmental Education and Interpretation of the Corno de Bico Protected Landscape. On 25 February, the organisers will host a webcast to provide further information to prospective applicants and their families. The camp aims to stimulate students’ curiosity and critical thinking skills, particularly in the area of astrophysics, and to bring together students from different backgrounds and life experiences. Students will take two courses, which will have daily lessons, some assignments, and a final exam. Some highlights of this year’s programme include: Astronomical observation sessions, both with the naked eye and telescopes — including a session coinciding with the peak ...

15 februari 2017: ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), scheduled to see first light in 2024, is at the cutting edge of telescope technology. Its optical system will consist of no fewer than five separate mirrors, each of them a significant engineering challenge. ESO has now awarded the contract to polish the third mirror in the light path, known as M3, to the French company Reosc [1], a subsidiary of Safran Electronics & Defense. They will receive the blank from SCHOTT, design the mirror and its mounting interfaces, polish the surface, and complete all necessary optical tests before delivery [2]. Reosc were also awarded the contracts to design, polish and test the telescope’s secondary mirror in July 2016, and to manufacture the deformable shell mirrors that will comprise the ELT’s fourth mirror (M4). M3 will be a giant 3.8-metre concave mirror — as big as the primary mirror of many of today’s world-class telescopes. ...

27 januari 2017: ESO is now inviting submissions for the fourth Photo Nightscape Awards (PNA) — an international competition for astrophotographers. As a partner in the competition, which is organised by the Association Française d’Astronomie, ESO will arrange for the winner of the Nightscape category to visit the Paranal Observatory in northern Chile, home of the Very Large Telescope (VLT). The competition categories for adult entrants are: Nightscape, Timelapse, and In Town, and they are open to photographers from all countries. The PNA Junior category, for entrants under 18 years old, is reserved for French nationals only. Anyone wishing to take part in the competition should submit a registration form, their photo or timelapse sequence and, if they are under 18 years of age, a parental consent form, to the following email address by 15 August 2017: pna@photonightscapeawards.com. For more detailed information, please refer to the competition rules on the dedicated web page. ...

20 januari 2017: On 27 April 2017, ESO will participate in Germany’s Girls’ Day activities, in which technical enterprises, universities and research organisations open their doors to female school students to give them an insight into science and technology professions and to encourage more of them to choose careers in STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). Places for the event are limited. To register, please visit the Girls’ Day website. The ESO Girls’ Day will introduce the work of ESO and highlight many of our daily activities, such as astrophysical research, mechanical and opto-mechanical design and integration, operations, and much more. The programme includes introductory talks as well as hands-on workshops on astronomy and engineering. The students will learn how astronomical instruments are built, tested and operated. They will also learn how data are collected and used in astronomical research to answer the big questions about the Universe. This will provide the ...

11 januari 2017: The winners of this year’s Catch a Star Contest have been announced. The top three prizes were awarded to: The Lost Planet, by Andrea Moral Suárez, Natalia Serrano López and Ana Sánchez Díez from Spain; Life on Mars, by Daniel Vilda Rodríguez, Daniel Sayad Pérez Peréz and Iván Rodríguez Lozano from Spain; and Dark Matter in the Classroom by Simona Stoyanova and Ognyan Simeonov from Bulgaria. A complete list of the winners can be found on the Catch a Star website. ESO is presenting a mounted astronomical image to each of the top five places and each winning team will also have the chance either to carry out remote observations at the National Astronomical Observatory “Rozhen”, Bulgaria, or to hold a video conference with a professional astronomer. Secondary school students from around the world were invited to take part in the contest. To participate students had to submit a written ...

4 januari 2017: With ESOCast episode 90 we are introducing the ESOcast Light series, a podcast to present the wonders of the Universe in bite-sized pieces. Short, snappy and straight to the facts, the brand new Light format presents cutting-edge science wrapped up in a crisp visual style, allowing those on the go to keep up with astronomical news and discoveries. The quick format is perfect to watch any time and anywhere. A 4K UHD version is also available for the ultimate in quality. The ESOcast Light episodes will not be replacing the standard, longer ESOcasts, but complement them with current astronomy news and images in ESO press releases. You can watch the first ESOcast Light episode here. You can subscribe to the ESOcasts in iTunes, receive future episodes on YouTube or follow us on Vimeo. Many other ESOcast episodes are also available.